A Camel Through the Eye of a Needle: The Influence of the Prosperity Gospel on Financial Risk-Taking, Optimistic Bias, and Positive Emotion

The prosperity gospel is one of the fastest growing religious movements in America. With popularized figures like Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar performing services to sold-out stadiums, new converts are drawn by the optimism-infused messages of positivity and financial wealth. Here we offer a formal scientific test of prosperity gospel's impact on psychological functioning. In 2 experiments, we tested a set of hypotheses related to the prosperity gospel's effects on financial risk-taking and positivity bias. The findings revealed that prosperity gospel messages generate heightened optimistic bias (Experiments 1 and 2), high arousal positive affect (Experiment 2), and financial risk-taking (Experiment 1). The results also indicated that even a secularized version of prosperity gospel leads to positivity bias, for both theists and atheists. This suggests the effectiveness of prosperity gospel lies in its ability to evoke positive states rather than communicate specifically religious teachings.